The home of Mr. Voorhees at Oak Lane, Philadelphia, where stucco has been used on metal lath in an English type of house 
The Secret of Durable Stucco 
SOME SUGGESTIONS ABOUT THE PROPER USE OF THE BUILDING MATERIAL 
THAT HAS IN THE PAST FEW YEARS WON ITS WAY TO POPULARITY 
by Albert Moyer 
ASSOCIATE OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS 
Photographs by Thomas W. Sears and others 
T HERE has been a tendency to discredit stucco, also called 
plaster, rough-cast and pebble-dash, for the simple rea¬ 
son that in some conspicuous instances it has proven unsatis¬ 
factory as a durable covering for the exterior of walls. The 
trouble has not been with the material itself, but with the ignor¬ 
ant methods by which it has been mixed and applied. Because 
we have come upon houses from the walls of which there were 
unsightly patches cracked or entirely fallen away from the sup¬ 
port we have naturally been somewhat skeptical about the last¬ 
ing qualities of this new-old wall covering. 
With the rapidly increasing cost of wood, however, we have 
been forced, fortunately, to carry forward our experiments with 
other materials, until we have finally reached a point where the in¬ 
herent merits of stucco have unmistakably asserted themselves, and 
the dependableness of the material been fully established when it 
is properly made, properly supported and properly applied. 
The history of stuccoes does not furnish sufficient information 
and data to be of practical value in the manufacture of the pres¬ 
ent-day Portland cement stuccoes. There are records standing 
from the year 350 B. C. of stuccoes made from vastly different 
material than are of economical use at the present time, and we 
find that such stuccoes were almost invariably used in warmer 
climates where the action of frost would not end to disintegrate 
the rather poor material which was then available. 
There is every reason to believe that originally these stuccoes 
were intended to cover up and protect inferior building stone 
and sunburned straw brick. The archaeology of stucco would 
tend to show that from an artistic standpoint this method of 
decoration was a development of the wattled buildings, which 
were plastered with clay and different muds hardened by being 
baked in the heat of the sun. Therefore, in this instance, the 
use of clay plaster over wattled houses was to protect an inferior 
building material. 
To-day stucco is used for a similar purpose, that of protection 
and pleasing surfaces. It would, therefore, seem advisable to 
recommend a material which would best serve the purpose of 
protection and artistic merit. Stucco or plaster should never be 
used as an imitation of other building material. “To cover brick 
with plaster and this plaster with fresco is perfectly legitimate— 
the plaster is gesso grounds on panel or canvas, but to cover 
brick with cement and to divide this cement into joints that it 
may look like stone, is to tell a falsehood, and is just as con¬ 
temptible a procedure as the other is noble.” 
To secure a wall covering that fulfils all modern requirements 
it is advisable to use only Portland cement stucco for exteriors, 
as this is the only hydraulic material which will stand the action 
of the elements. 
From the artistic side we would also recommend such surface 
(81) 
